I Just finished the assembly of my DRSSTC. I have just started to fine tune the coupling and and dialing in the primary tap. This is it's first run.

High Temperature Plasma Electrolysis

The lab

This is my playground.

Plasma water electrolysis

This is a simple calorimeteric device I built to help the determination of the heating power of a plasma water electrolysis (Mizuno - like experiment). I confirm that in this experiment, the heating power of the electrolysis is greater than the electrical power injected in the device. The excess energy increases as the electrolysis voltage is increased from 200 V up to 350 V (400 W input). The excess energy may be as high as 120 W. The abnormal excess heat shown here exceeds 120 watts without taking into account the gas formation and also the luminous radiation. This power is therefore definitely meaningful. I did not find in this device any classical explanation for this thermal effect and I'm examining the possibility of less classical explanations. The initial purpose of these experiments were to investigate the potential of a simple experimental device in order to confirm the results obtained by T. Mizuno. I think that this first step is obtained and that I can say that ratios between energies out and in (COP) of 1.3 and 1.4 have been reached with a satisfactory reproducibility. In the next step I will try to explain this phenomenon in order to increase the COP performances. So in conclusion this is what I did to see if I could get more energy out of this device than what I put in. No Im not a Scientest I only play one on the internet.

New Year and new goals.

I've been off the back on posting so I'm going to try and post at least once a month. I've been working on lots of new projects and have made some interesting findings and would like to share as much as possible. The main thrust of my studies have been in the area of alternative energy sources. This area is extremely controversial and I have attempted to stick to the science. I truly believe that solutions to our energy crisis could be found by a home experimenter. I'm not saying that will be me but I feel if I don't try to understand I'm doomed to never know. On my journey to understand I have come to learn things I never thought I would need to and I have found that learning for me is something that I truly enjoy and need. I have made what for me were amazing findings during late nights spent watching magnets spin in mid air and watching the star like glow of a high temperature electrolysis experiment. These I would like to share with you.

Jiffycoil

Tiny Tiny Tesla coil

I was cleaning the Lab and had a few parts that were laying around that gave me an idea. I could take a small plastic wire spool, a dead ink pen, a few bent brass bolts, a few tiny low powered capacitors and a few bits of different wire and build a Tiny Tesla coil. Wow big surprise Huh? After about and hour of work and a bunch of McGivering I ended up with this. It works really well and I have more fun with it than I do with many of my larger coils. What next? A series of ultra tiny tesla coils? Twist my arm.

Wireless Electricity

This is based on a project by Marko at 4hv,org. I laidout the PCB in Express PCB.

"The idea behind the project was to create a small tabletop demonstrator of magnetically coupled wireless power transfer, resembling a miniature version of the MIT 'witricity' device. The goal was to keep the circuit simple with easily obtainable parts, and to keep voltage and power levels low so the device is safe for handling and doesn't require special methods of cooling.

The basic idea is to feed a parallel LC tank circuit from an AC voltage source at it's resonant frequency, which allows large reactive current to circulate in the circuit while only real power is being drawn from the source. This sets up a large alternating magnetic field in the inductor, which is designed as a single conductive loop in this case.

Now, another LC tank with load attached is brought in proximity to the excited LC circuit, significant amounts of power can be transferred via weak magnetic coupling between them. This is because AC current itself in the transmitting loop is very large, and inductive reactance of the receiver loop is canceled out by the capacitor.

For a practical device, the AC voltage source had to be substituted with an appropriate oscillator, which would take feedback from the tank circuit itself and hence always drive it at it's resonant frequency.

The circuit of choice was a slightly modified royer oscillator, such as popularly used in CCFL inverters and for flyback drivers.

Input voltage was limited to 15V for safety and because the circuit tends to become unstable at higher voltages."

Table top coil finished.

Here is the first light on my latest coil.

Coil progress

I wound the primary coil and finished all the wiring except for the spark gap and 12v power supply. I also wound the secondary but have yet to photograph it.

Table top Tesla coils.

I have a great combination of parts and performance for a small table top Tesla coil and this will be the second in this line that I have built. This is the lower half of the setup and I still need to wind the Primary and Secondary coils.

I just finished building Franklin's Bells. The bells and hardware are all brass. The terminals are vintage as are the Bakelite standoffs used for the base of the bells and the terminals.

Electrostatic bells like these are often referred to as Franklin's Bells, after the eminent American scientist Benjamin Franklin, who installed them in his house to warn him of approaching thunderstorms, as is recorded in a famous portrait of Franklin observing his set of electrostatic bells as a thunderstorm raged outside. This electrostatic device actually was invented in about 1742 by Andrew Gordon, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University at Erfurt, Germany. Gordon's Bells constituted the first device that converted electrical energy into mechanical energy in the form of continuous mechanical motion, in this case, the moving of a bell clapper back and forth between two oppositely charged bells.

Franklin made use of Gordon's idea by connecting one bell to a pointed rod attached to his chimney and a second bell to ground. This pointed rod discharged electrical energy from heavily charged passing clouds that would cause Franklin's set of Gordon's Bells to ring.

WC Tesla coil revise

The WC coil went through numerous changes. The primary had to be changed after the secondary was replaced. I replaced the spark gap after many failed attempts at making the rotary gap work properly. The new static gap works wonderfully. Such is the life of a Tesla coil.

OMG we are going on vacation.

My lovely Green Butterfly and I are going on a cruise Feb 12 for 12 days. We are booked on the Azamara Journey

and I cant believe we are going here.

Day 1	Miami, Florida
Day 2	At Sea
Day 3	At Sea
Day 4	St. John, U.S.Virgin Islands
Day 5	Gustavia, St. Barts
Day 6	Fort De France, Martinique
Day 7	Bequia, The Grenadines
Day 8	Roseau, Dominica
Day 9	Basseterre, St. Kitts
Day 10	Virgin Gorda, B.V.I.
Day 11	At Sea
Day 12	At Sea
Day 13	Miami, Florida

I'm awake I know I am. Oh Hissy this is going to be a dream with you.

AAAAaaaaHHHHHhhhhh!

Control we have a problem.

This control box which I used to control power to my larger coils suffered a catastrophic failure a few weeks ago while running my six inch coil being powered by a NST stack of 3 x 15kV 30mA. I don't think it was the power I think it was a short due to the tight confines in which I placed all of the electronics in this box. I have always felt things were a bit tight but never could find reason to change it seeing that it has proven good in hard service for over 3 years. So I'm working on a new control box that will address all the possible issues I saw in the previous one. RIP

More power please.

I just picked up this Potential transformer. It is 70:1 ratio, 8400v primary, and 400va. This is a smaller version of a "Pole Pig" the big gray cylinders you see on top of power poles. This will give a large Tesla coil what it needs to really put on a show. They are deadly and would not ask permission to kill you if you make a mistake with them.

Solid State Tesla Coil SSTC

This is the future of Tesla coils the SSTC or solid state Tesla coil. Gone is the roar of the spark gap and the heavy weight of the neon sign transformer. From this point they get more complex to build and the sparks get bigger.

Changes to the WC coil

As with every Tesla coil the tuning process is bound to bring change to the setup. This coil has been a bear to tune. The top load had to be changed and the spark gap needed 4 additional electrodes added. I've been testing it in the morning and it sounds like a jet taking off. My eyes have a slight case of flash burn from the UV light coming off the spark gap and my throats a bit sore fom all the ozone I've been breathing in. I love this hobby.

The WC Coil

I've been working on this coil for a few weeks and it has gone through one design and now it has incarnated into this. I have tested the output on this coil and it's very nice. Building coils has kept my mind busy and I'm thankful to have the resources to build them. Evita came up with the name for the coil, can you guess what WC stands for?

Red Laser in morning Geeks take warning.

I was gifted a 5 mW He Ne (Helium Neon) laser yesterday. I have been researching holography and wanting to put together a holography table . I now can do this. The beam from the He Ne laser is not very visible to the eye but a nice little fog bank in the Low Country this morning made for a fun testing time. Thanks to my Geek friends.

Bi cone Tesla Coil

I have been reading a lot of Tesla's work and early on he experimented with cone shaped secondary coils. This is an interesting configuration and has come into particular interest regarding the generation of powerful electric arcs, as opposed to the generation of long electric arcs. Since Tesla's goal was to transmit power through the atmosphere he was primarily interested in generating intense electromagnetic radiation. The larger windings at the bottom of the secondary are able to absorb the most current from the primary, while the tapered format linearly increases the voltage in a proportional amount according to the electromagnetic falloff according to the distance from the primary. These conical coils often had no top load capacitor, and relied on the internal capacitance of the coil itself. This experiment clearly shows the distributed parameters in the components. I have built a Bi cone coil and have just started testing it. So far the results are impressive and will warrant further study.